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Her research on puzzles riddled with delight

University of Toronto student became hooked on the world of puzzles when her professor related the ancient riddle of the Sphinx in first year.

University of Toronto student Stacy Costa, who helps design brainteasers for the Star’s Friday Puzzle page, shows off her cross between Rubik’s cube and Sudoku. (Rene Johnston / Toronto Star) | Order this photo

When the professor of a first-year course on puzzles at the University of Toronto sprang this ancient brainteaser on his class — what starts on four legs, then goes on two, then ends on three? — the girl who loved puzzles started to believe this could be a career.

It wasn’t just the satisfaction of learning the answer of that particular riddle (the answer, of course, is human beings: we crawl as babies, walk upright as adults and finally use a cane in old age). It was the whole history of puzzles presented in the course, all the different types and the growing scientific controversy about what they can do for the brain that got Stacy Costa thinking her passion for puzzles could be more than just a hobby she shared with her dad.

“At the end of the semester we had the option of writing an essay or designing a puzzle, and I was the only one who made a puzzle, a sort of cross between Sudoku and a Rubik’s cube that I made out of supplies from my dad’s garage,” recalls Stacy, now 21 and in her fourth year as a budding “enigmatologist.”

That’s her word. Officially she’s an anthropology major with a minor in semiotics, the study of symbols, she explains. “Like the guy in the
Da Vinci Code
.”

In truth, she’s become a sort of puzzle apprentice to the professor, renowned
puzzle scholar Marcel Danesi
, so much that she now helps him design weekly puzzles for the Star and other corporate clients, including a cereal company that wants to put puzzles on its boxes.

This fall Costa will teach her first U of T night school course on puzzles and the brain, the field in which she hopes to do groundbreaking research in one of the master’s programs for which she’s applied.

And she has just designed an online “scavenger hunt” that highlights some of the research being done at Ontario’s universities — from study of a virus that threatens coffee beans to looking at how 80-year-olds handle bodybuilding.

Her
Virtual Scavenger Hunt
, designed for the Council of Ontario Universities, begins at midnight Sunday, when those who register get their first video clue about a research project at one of Ontario’s 21 universities. Players have until noon the next day to solve each daily clue and add it to a larger word puzzle.

By the time they have solved the clue from each university, they can tackle the final puzzle. Five university students will win $500 towards tuition fees, while non-students can land “swag” about Ontario research.

“I’ll be honest, I didn’t know how much of the research going on at universities had to do with everyday life until I started looking,” said Costa. “But so much of what I found is really compelling, and it’s not just all about science. If you love coffee, for example, it sparks your interest to find out there’s a virus that’s affecting beans in Colombia.”

The interactive game is part of a broader Research Matters campaign by universities to show off some of the research for which Ontario taxpayers pay almost $1.7 billion a year.

The project has included “pop-up” research stands on Parliament Hill, travelling town halls where researchers present projects and a
three-minute thesis competition
to encourage researchers to explain their work in three minutes flat before a panel of celebrity judges.

But the new scavenger hunt is an example of what the vice-president of research at Wilfrid Laurier University called “game-ification.”

“It’s popular these days. Everyone uses game-ification to engage the public,” said Abby Goodrum, who is involved in the Research Matters campaign. “But this is really about accountability and letting people know where their research money is going.”

Online puzzles are just the latest twist in a phenomenon that Danesi has been studying for 42 years. The puzzle guru, who will deliver his first TEDx talk on the topic in March, remembers his mother getting so wrapped up in crosswords in her native Italian when he was young that there were times she’d forget to serve dinner.

“What is it about puzzles and anagrams and riddles? We love them yet we consider them trivial,” mused the author of three books about puzzles and a blog for Psychology Today. “But they’re not trivial. My theory is that solving a puzzle provides order in a world of disorder and chaos.”

As baby boomers age, Danesi sees the growth of a “whole puzzle brain industry,” as some research suggests puzzles may combat dementia. “In some way,” he said, “they’re Botox for the brain.”

He points to the Luminosity.com website — which promises brainteasers to keep the mind sharp — and the surging popularity of games for digital tablets.

“When I’m on the subway I look over people’s shoulders and they’re all playing games and puzzles,” he said.

Danesi said he’s skeptical about the ability of puzzles to boost brain power “unless it’s done regularly. It’s like exercise, it won’t work if it’s only sporadic. If it were a magic pill against Alzheimer’s, I’d be a rich man.”

But what he does believe puzzles boost — more than intellectual power — is the imagination. “That’s why people with really high IQs aren’t always the best at solving puzzles. It’s people who have imagination who seem to do better.”

Still, many people insist puzzles are good for the mind. When Stacy Costa’s grandfather died last fall, her grandmother found a stack of “word-find” puzzles he had been doing for months.

“He did it to ward off aging, which I’m not sure it can do, although it can increase vocabulary,” said Costa.

One avenue she would like to explore as part of a master’s degree is whether doing word puzzles in your native tongue works the brain differently than doing word puzzles in a second language. She’s thinking of asking Portuguese- or Italian-speakers to try puzzles in their native tongues and then puzzles in English.

Even if there aren’t positive effects on lifespan or brain activity, says Costa, “I love that ‘aha moment’ when you get the answer. It’s just so satisfying.”

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